The Yorkshire heatwave shows no sign of relenting, and we don’t have the parasols the Brontës found so useful in summer. That’s why many are choosing to stay inside in the shade when the sun is at its fiercest, and of course it’s important to keep pet dogs inside as well during the middle of unusually hot days with little cloud cover. Dog lovers know the importance of keeping their pet happy and healthy, and my beautiful senior rescue dog Matisse is snoozing on the sofa next to me as I type this. Emily Brontë was a dog lover too, a lover of all animals to be fair.
In today’s post we’re taking a look at a poem that Emily Brontë wrote on this day in 1839, and which has become known by its first line: “And now the house-dog stretched once more.”
‘And now the house-dog stretched once more
His limbs upon the glowing floor;
The children half resume their play,
Though from the warm hearth scared away;
The goodwife left her spinning-wheel
And spread with smiles the evening meal;
The shepherd placed a seat and pressed
To their poor fare his unknown guest,
And he unclasped his mantle now,
And raised the covering from his brow,
Said, voyagers by land and sea
Were seldom feasted daintily,
And cheered his host by adding stern
He’d no refinement to unlearn.
A silence settled on the room,
The cheerful welcome sank to gloom;
But not those words, though cold or high,
So froze their hospitable joy.
No – there was something in his face,
Some nameless thing which hid not grace,
And something in his voice’s tone
Which turned their blood as chill as stone.
The ringlets of his long black hair
Fell o’er a cheek most ghastly fair.
Youthful he seemed – but worn as they
Who spend too soon their youthful day.
When his glances dropped, ’twas hard to quell
Unbidden feelings’ hidden swell;
And Pity scarce her tears could hide,
So sweet that brow with all its pride.
But when upraised his eye would dart
An icy shudder through the heart,
Compassion changed to horror then,
And fear to meet that gaze again.
It was not hatred’s tiger-glare,
Nor the wild anguish of despair;
It was not either misery
Which quickens friendship’s sympathy;
No – lightning all unearthly shone
Deep in that dark eye’s circling zone,
Such withering lightning as we deem
None but a spirit’s look may beam;
And glad were all when he turned away
And wrapt him in his mantle grey,
And hid his head upon his arm,
And veiled from view his basilisk charm.’
We are in a shepherd’s home – it is a happy, cosy home, a romantic ideal. But, the shepherd has brought an unknown, silent guest – one who seems to be an evil, other-worldly spirit. It is undoubtedly a Gondal poem, that is one set in the imaginary kingdom created by Emily and Anne Brontë, but it makes us think of a story Emily wrote over seven years later: Wuthering Heights.
Emily knew a succession of house-dogs: her own Grasper and Keeper, and Anne’s spaniel Flossy. Here is my very own house-dog Matisse celebrating England’s World Cup quarter-final win yesterday. I hope you are coping with the heat, and that you can join me next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.
